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Monthly Archives: November 2015

Hi all, I have a little bit of daftness for you today – a small experiment if you will. I have been unlucky enough to be a bit ill this week, but it was the best kind of illness – the kind that keeps you off work but doesn’t stop you painting! I decided to experiment with a few minis that are not 40k/RT, or even sci-fi, and attempt to make them usable as RT civvies. Firstly, I quickly converted and painted up these two characters – anchor woman ‘Rhonda Burgundy’ and her trusty cameraman, bringing you all the latest news and traffic from the hive cities of Spero Secundus. Rhonda really likes to stand out from the crowd with her outrageous outfits, and is a big hit on the upper-Spire vid feeds – channel 80. Some die-hard brat-fans have adopted her style, and refer to it as ‘80’s fashion’ after the channel. The minis are from Moonraker’s ‘suits and street people’ range – they got a bit of light 40k-ification to help them to fit the setting a little better, and then a quick brush-job to get them on the table. It’s all very tongue-in-cheek and a bit of fun 🙂

Next up we have Dr. ‘Hraxi Jonas’ (centre), the famous xeno-archaeologist and galactic adventurer. A little known fact about Jonas is his hatred of a nut based delicacy on his homeworld of Hrax, called ‘Nutzi’… Hraxi Jonas is accompanied by his trusted assistants ‘Knuckles’ (left), and Samwise Short-Round (right). Knuckles isn’t the sharpest hyper-scalpel in the box, but he’s loyal, and as strong as a Mukaali, (which comes in handy if ‘The Doc’ needs some heads banged together). Short-Round is a sneaky little bugger, adept at getting into places where he shouldn’t be – usually with a view to relieving people of their property. Short-Round is also bizarrely obsessed when it comes to academic achievement and status… He insists that strangers address the Doctor by his professional title, and has been known to punch them in the unmentionables if they don’t!

Hraxi Jonas is the Archaeologist from the old Talisman Timescape range – he’s a stunning piece, and one that I didn’t want to mess with at all… why would you, right? Short-Round is fantasy Halfling ‘Willy’ from WD 96 (£2.50 for 7!!!)… Short-Round got a mild bit of conversion, but nothing heavy. Knuckles is another mini from Moonraker’s ‘suits and street people’ range, no conversion work here, just a quick and easy paint job.

So there we go, a little dip into the slightly daft. One last picture of Rhonda interviewing Hraxi Jonas:

Rhonda: “So, ‘Hraxi Jonas’, what can you tell channel 80 News about the alien artifact that you’ve discovered?”

Hello chaps & chapesses, just a quick post today. I got a few more civilians completed over the week – a pair of excellent Inquisitorial scribes from the 2000’s, and two more of the Colony 87 minis (a porter and a preacher type). I’ve been playing with inks again, particularly trying to get a way of painting Black that I like… these guys were given many black washes, a slightly thicker wash in the recesses and then a very light drybrush with I think Eshin Grey. It’s subtle, but I think I like it! The Colony 87 chaps have been painted to go with the House Malocchio nobles that I presented last week, though a bit shabbier, (as befits their station). Here they are:

And here’s the Malocchio family discussing tithes with some scribes of the Administratum… Conte Fabian doesn’t look to happy about it!

Anyhow, that’s it for today – no fluff for these guys I’m afraid, (though they are certainly characterful enough!). I have more civvies on the workbench to be painted over the next couple of weeks and then into silly season! Ho ho ho 🙂

Hi folks, quick post from me today – the first of my effort at painting up some NPC’s for a more narrative-based approach to table top gaming. I’ve been itching to paint up the amazing Colony 87 Lord & Lady since I managed to get hold of a set, (thanks Jon!), and they were a natural place to start this particular project. I also added a young lady from the Spacelords range (Moonraker Miniatures) as an older daughter to complete the family, and I also included the old ‘Astropath Korm’ model as an advisor/tutor of some kind. I painted them all in the same way – a continuation of me experimenting with using inks over a white undercoat. The effect looks very different to my usual style – the pigment came out much cleaner and brighter than I am used to, and I’m not sure if I like the effect or not… I think I do, I guess I’m more comfortable painting in a grungy style but I don’t think that my usual approach would’ve suited these more aristocratic folks. I think I’m happy… yeah… I may go back and play a bit more with the faces, (makeup for example), but I’m calling them done for now.

Anyhow, here they are:

“The Conte & Contessa de Malocchio are the ruling family of the Sevelli Hive on Spero Secundus. Conte Fabian Malocchio is a former Vice Admiral in the Imperial Fleet, a man with a reputation for tactical brilliance and brutal efficiency. He retired from the Fleet some twenty years ago in order to succeed his own father when the former Conte was assassinated in a failed coup – his first act as Conte was to root the out the conspirators and have them and their families boiled alive – their skulls still adorn his throne room, bearing witness to his power and control.

The Contessa Persia Malocchio is a powerful woman in her own right, a skilled politician and part of the ruling family of the neighbouring hive Verento. The ties between Sevelli and Verento are strong and ancient, and the marriage between Fabian and Persia can be considered a mere formality rather than an act of love. Persia plays the role of co-ruler perfectly, her political acumen complementing the skills of her husband. However, rumours abound of a sly and unnatural cruelty that lies in the hearts of all Verento nobility, and whispers of Persia indulging in sadistic torture and perverted lusts are passed fearfully amongst the servants.

Fabian and Persia have two children – Lady Sophina and ‘Little Lord’ Fredo. Sophina is the eldest, and was conceived soon after the Conte & Contessa married. She is a strong, intelligent and fearless young woman who displays the pragmatism and determination of her father, and combines this with all the cunning and guile of her mother. Lady Sophina is also incredibly ambitious, and while she is single minded in pursuit of her goals, so far she has not evidenced any of the darker traits of either parent. Little Lord Fredo on the other hand, is an under developed, cruel and spiteful child. Despite appearances, is actually eight years old, and the household servants avoid him and his tantrums wherever possible… there are dark rumours that the child has an uncanny air about him.

The Malocchio family are shown here with Arno, faithful hand-servant to Sophina, and more recently, (and reluctantly), to the Little Lord Fredo. This reluctance stems from the fear… Arno does not think it coincidence that he contracted a blinding illness just days after being accused of looking at Fredo ‘with impertinence’…”

So there we go, I hope you enjoyed that – more civvies to follow in the coming weeks 🙂

Hello chaps, carrying on my humble efforts on the Rogue Quest project that JB and Jon kicked off, I would like to present my fifth entry. As a reminder, the brief is to build a six-strong adventuring party for Rogue Trader/Confrontation, where each member portrays one of the classic dungeon crawler tropes:

Barbarian

Bard

Cleric

Fighter

Magic user

Paladin

Ranger

Rogue/thief

This time, I’ve tackled the ‘Cleric’ character, and I must admit, I have really been looking forward to this one… I used the classic ‘Techpriest Schlan’ model from the Adventurers range as the base model – a creepy and disturbing individual if ever I saw one! To be honest, the base sculpt is so-so IMO, and I felt compelled to make a few ‘adjustments’ here and there. I embellished the staff with several bits from the Flagellants kit (a great source of bits!), and bashed together a creepy mechanical claw and backpack/flamer from various AdMech bits. I should probably explain that I started out with AdMech in mind for this guy, but over the course of the conversion I got to thinking about him as more of a heretical type… the battered feet, the raggedness, the hunched look… they all suggested a wandering vagrant to me, rather than a powerful AdMech priest, so when it came to painting, I deliberately avoided using too much red. I did slip a little bit in to tie him in with the RogueQuest crew, but I (hopefully) avoided making him look obviously mechanicus. I kept the pallet muted and weathered looking – this guy clearly isn’t rich or powerful! The feet were particularly fun to do – whether the sculptor intended it or not, (one of the Morrisons, Naismith or Copplestone I believe), I interpreted the exposed and skeletal feet as being cybernetic, and painting the transition between flesh and metal was good fun. The other major point on the painting side is the religious icon… I spent a lot of time on this, and it’s the most ambitious bit of freehand I have ever undertaken… I’m hoping some of you may recognise the image that I was trying to reproduce here??? 😉

Anyhow, here are some pics, see what you think:

I

And here’s the fluff:

“Hass used to be a Mechanicus exploratory priest from Urdesh, and he travelled the galaxy widely in order to gather artefacts and data for the holy Omnissiah. His services were highly prised, for Hass’s expertise covered many fields – biological, medical, linguistic, mechanical, electrical, and even social. He never questioned the doctrine that he had been programmed (literally and metaphorically) to believe, until a fateful discovery on a distant and uncharted moon in the galactic south – a region of space seldom travelled by the Imperium. The moon held evidence of an ancient population, and the rulers of Urdesh held its existence as a jealously guarded secret. Hass was one of the few explorators to ever be sent to the moon, and the mission was so clandestine that, unusually, he went alone. The high priests of Urdesh dispatched Hass with a small craft and no crew, (apart from a handful of mindless servitors), in order to preserve secrecy. Hass was unperturbed, and accepted the mission without reservation.

On arriving at the designated moon, Hass spent several weeks surveying the small, barren world, and he eventually identified an equatorial area that appeared to have a subterranean complex of intelligent design. He landed his craft, and set about organising servitors to assemble a bio-dome and begin preliminary excavation. The servitors soon broke through to the subterranean complex, and Hass ventured in to explore and document thoroughly. To Hass’s amazement, he discovered that the site was an ancient human habitation dating back to the dark ages before the Great Crusade, containing examples of technology that pre-dated even the STC system that his peers worshipped with such zeal. What was most surprising was the sophistication of the computer systems that he found, far more elegant than the simple servitor-driven systems that he was used to. It took time to connect power feeds from his ship and bring the habitat to life, and even more time to figure out how to work with the machines, (they were operated by delicate keys in a language that had been dead for eons, but eventually he gained access, thanks to a cryptic yellow note that had been helpfully left attached to one of the terminals). Hass discovered that the ancient humans called the machines ‘Windows’, and he could see why – the ancient monitors were like windows to an unimaginable life that was vividly painted in pictures and words. He poured over millions of files over many months, and learned much of this ancient civilisation. Much was strange to him, but what came across clearly was how much art, beauty, curiosity and free thinking was valued by these ancients, and how little superstition and reverence they possessed. Nothing it seemed was beyond their curiosity, and Hass was filled with admiration and inspiration. One image in particular kept recurring, that of a mechanically enhanced man who seemed to embody this wilful expressiveness and creativity in his gaze. Hass committed this picture to hard copy, convinced that it must be the image of some profit or saint of the ancients.

All too soon, Hass completed his survey. He knew that he should return with his findings, but to his surprise, he found that he didn’t want to… for the first time in his existence, Hass had feelings of defiance and wilfulness that ran counter to all his teachings. He ran countless diagnostic checks on his own systems, and each showed that he was operating perfectly, and yet Hass felt different – changed. Put simply, he wanted to be free – free of dogma and ritual, free to express and create, free to explore and grow. In that instant, Hass resolved to escape his life, even though he knew that such heresy was punishable by death. He quickly calculated that the only way to escape the Adeptus Mechanicus would be to stage his own death in a crash-landing, to sever his connection to the Noosphere, and to find another crew where he could hide under a different identity. The plan was risky, but Hass knew that it had to be done. He left as if to return to Urdesh, and picked a sparsely populated Imperial trading outpost en-route where he could implement his scheme. He over-rode the pilot servitor engrams in such a way as to make it appear as a fault, and he manually guided the craft into a crash in uninhabited part of the world. The crash was calculated to be severe but survivable, and Hass was able to leave on foot, rigging the ship’s plasma drives to detonate once he had reached a safe distance. He waited until the precise moment of the explosion to fire a low-pulse laser into his own cortex in such a way that he physically destroyed the portion of brain that connected him to the Noosphere without causing too much incidental damage. To anyone tracking his Noosphere connection, it would appear is if he had been vaporised with the ship.

Wounded and disorientated, he wandered the world for months as he recovered from his ordeal, before finding himself in a minor trading port. He learned of a visiting Trader named Arturo, and he introduced himself to the young man and offered his services in any capacity that Arturo chose to name. Arturo was intrigued, and asked Hass what he could do – he was suitably impressed at the long list that Hass provided. Arturo agreed, and Hass joined the trader as an apothecary and engineer. He integrated well with the crew, where his usefulness and personality was welcomed by all, and Hass enjoyed the freedom and liberation of the environment in turn. Over the course of several weeks, Hass felt a growing sense of responsibility and loyalty to the crew… Although discovery by the servants of the Omnissiah was unlikely, he didn’t want to endanger them in any way, so he decided to confide with Arturo regarding his past. Arturo listened patiently, and remained quiet and still during Hass’s story. He thought about all the ex-priest told him, weighing risk against benefit, and accounting for the friendship he felt for Hass. Eventually, Arturo agreed that Hass could remain a part of his crew on the condition that he shared and developed his new-found philosophies, for Arturo saw them not as heresy, but as a way of free-thinking that brought him a trading advantage in a dogmatic and superstitious galaxy. Hass agreed, and now travels as a member of Arturo’s crew, proudly displaying the picture of the ancient visionary that he recovered from a long-dead moon – an image that embodies the power of creativity and curiosity, ever reminding Hass of the value of free though.”

So, there we have it – six RogueQuest characters completed, and six crew members to accompany Arturo on his RT adventures. I hope you have enjoyed this little project as much as I have, I’m not sure what I’m going to do next, but it’ll probably be some civilians to populate my imaginary world… watch this space 😉

Finally, I just want to thank JB and Jon again for letting me crash the party and for your kind words and encouragement – I’ve loved watching your interpretation of the brief, and I hope that you enjoyed mine in return. I really hope that I get to meet you guys at BoyL next year, and maybe even get our RQ parties together on a table! Now that would be cool 🙂